Tweaking Our Curriculum

Always plan in pencil!

While it's fun to participate in curriculum link-ups, it can also be dangerous! I enjoyed reading so many great posts and hearing about how different families plan to learn together this year. And I saw tons of interesting curriculum choices, either new to me, or that I hadn't had a chance to research...

Very dangerous!

I really tried not to give into temptation...for five whole minutes! Then, like a true curriculum junkie, I came up with fifteen good reasons why we "needed" just a few more items for our 2011-2012 academic year. I am very good at rationalizing!

We will incorporate geography into some of our unit studies, but it seemed like we needed a bit more "formal" geography study, so I ordered the Geography Through Literature pack from Beautiful Feet Books. (It's 23% off right now!) I love the idea of learning history (or just about anything) through literature.

I can't wait to get started on these! I loved Seabird as a kid, and Dad loved Paddle to the Sea, so we're both really looking forward to reading them with the kids. The map set is nice, too. The maps are large and on good quality paper. I'm not sure where we'll fit it in, but at some point this year we'll be reading our way through North America with Holling C. Holling.




I also signed us up for Typing Pal through Homeschool Buyers Co-op. We had already purchased typing software elsewhere but after trying it, we all hated it. Even me, and I can already type. We found it gimmicky and distracting, but we were going to grin and bear it, until I did the demo lessons on Typing Pal...

So much better! It's simple, it's not silly or babyish, and it gets straight to the point: typing!

Since we'll be studying water resources later in the year, I got a Water Cycle Lapbook project pack from Hands of a Child. (On sale right now at CurrClick!) I love making lapbooks with my kids. It's such a fun way to process what we've learned, and you end up with a neat project to show off!

I also got a Water Thematic Unit from Teacher Created Resources. To be honest, this unit is probably a bit "young" for my kids, but I loved how it teaches the water cycle through literature. We'll be reading Island Boy by Barbara Cooney, Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe by Vera B. William, and The Magic Schoolbus at the Waterworks by Joanna Cole as we learn all about our...